Serious Water Revaluation: 199% Water Rate Increase in Trempealeau, Wisconsin! (WinonaDailyNews)

Jan.17, 2009 in Public Works, Water Bills, Water Industry, Water Management, Water Rates

(Jan. 17, 2009, Winona Daily News)

Water rates in the village of Trempealeau, Wis., could increase by 199 percent to fund water-quality improvement projects expected to cost between $2.6 and $3.2 million, said Village Administrator Travis Cooke.

The village board held a public meeting Wednesday about the increase, though no residents attended.

The village has been unable to comply with state and federal nitrate standards. The funds will pay for two new deep wells and a water treatment facility intended to bring the village into compliance. Recent samples show the village’s lone operating municipal well exceeds state and federal nitrate standards.

The meeting was held at the request of the Wisconsin Progressive Community Services, a nonprofit public advocacy group, Cooke said. The village knew the PSC’s public meeting request was coming, waited to receive it by e-mail Tuesday and met on Wednesday evening, he said.

“I think we’ve done just about everything we can to inform the public about the need for new wells and a treatment plant ? and people know that (the improvements) will eventually cost them money in higher rates,” Cooke said.

Two new deep wells and a plant to treat the water would increase charges for residential customers using 4,100 gallons of water a month from $12.22 to $36.50, according to the PSC letter. That would be in addition to an estimated 208 percent increase in the public fire protection charge.

The village board has worked steadily on a solution to reducing high nitrate levels in water the past two years, Cooke said. It hired Davy Engineering Co. of La Crosse, Wis., which produced a water system report in June outlining long-term construction alternatives.

It began offering bottled water this fall to five families with infants younger than 6 months old when tests showed nitrates exceeded state and federal limits. Nitrates are harmful especially to young children.

On Wednesday, the board awarded a $273,380 bid to Sam’s Well Drilling of Randolph, Wis., to drill two wells on the northeast side of the village. Well 4 will be completed by mid April and Well 5 by mid June, said Cooke. Both wells will reach far below the 170 foot average depths of the current wells to avoid the nitrate contamination, Cooke said. After analyzing water from the new wells, design will begin on a water-treatment plant to reduce concentrations of iron and manganese.

“We’ll drill to 500 feet to a confined aquifer safe from groundwater contamination. There will be iron and manganese (in the water), but that’s not a health concern,” he said.

Cooke had no complaint about receiving the PSC

request to hold a public hearing on the planned improvements, saying that through newsletters and other local publicity, the topic has been given a high priority.

“There will be a host of public hearings as the treatment plant project and then rate case comes,” he said.

A PSC spokeswoman said it’s common for the group to request utilities hold public meetings when proposed projects could boost rates by 100 percent or more. The PSC is aware of Trempealeau’s meeting this week and will be evaluating its adequacy after it receives a report from the village about the meeting, said Teresa Weidermann-Smith, a PSC spokeswoman.

“Our purpose in asking for the project to be discussed at a public meeting is primarily to ensure that the rate impacts we have calculated are communicated. It is not in any way an assessment or criticism of the local effort to educate ratepayers on the project. In most situations, there has been considerable debate and discussion of these projects in public settings,” Weidermann-Smith said in an e-mail.

The PSC will take 60 to 90 days to consider the well and treatment plant proposal the village submitted Dec. 19, said Weidermann-Smith.

The village will seek a state Safe Drinking Water loan to finance the improvements and then file a rate increase to repay the loan, Cooke said.